Getting your player ready...
CARACAS, Venezuela — Bureaucrats in oil-rich Venezuela can look forward to fewer expensive SUVs, top-of-the-line mobile telephones and whiskey-fueled parties next year.
Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez said Sunday that Venezuela’s 2009 budget “will have significant restrictions” compared to this year’s US$63.9 billion plan as President Hugo Chavez’s government keeps a close watch on slumping international oil prices.
“There are expenses that must be eliminated and others that must be reduced,” Rodriguez said in an interview on the privately owned Televen TV network.
Venezuela relies on oil income for more than 40 percent of its budget.
